Ana Patricia Romay
What is the difference between a meaningless and a meaningful walk?
The truth is, I cannot think of one thing in the universe that lacks meaning.
If those meanings are out of the reach of our understanding is a whole different story.
Yet, even the unexplainable things in the universe have names: dark matter, dark energy, unidentified flying objects, the Bermuda Triangle...
Is naming something giving it meaning?
I believe my mom would say yes.
"I named you Ana Patricia because it means noble. It means grace."
I would like to think I live up to my mom's meaning of myself.
But perhaps what makes a walk meaningful holds an impossible answer.
Maybe some things in the universe are unexplainable
because they hold too many possible explanations, too many possible meanings,
So we are satisfied with simplifying it to "impossible" and leaving it at that.
I will do it, too.
Let me, then, rephrase my question.
What gives a walk poetic meaning?
I know that walking tends to have a purpose, not a meaning:
I walk to get to class on time or to get on the bus.
But today, I decide that purpose and poetic meaning can go hand in hand.
I will walk to make a poetic meaning of this,
and to get on the 7:50 bus.
I leave my house at 7:31 a.m., and it is still dark.
It is colder and windier than my body is used to,
and I can tell by its shivering it longs for 78-degree weather.
It rained last night, and the concrete is stamped with occasional puddles.
The wind is so strong it makes them move like waves.
The moon lights the sky and reflects on one of the puddles.
And yet again, I think of my mother.
How the puddle reminds me of the ocean waves, and how my mother reminds me of the ocean.
How the world takes and takes from her,
but she keeps gently embracing her shore every time.
And I am sure that even the parts of her that light can't reach are still beautiful.
But it is already 7:42, and time will not wait for me or for the 7:50 bus.
So I leave her and the puddle behind.
I approach the bus stop and read, "6-minute delay on line E5".
And I look up and sigh, thinking of all the things that might have caused the delay to happen:
Puddle-filled pavements, a schoolboy dropping his books while crossing the street, a distracted bus driver whose wife is about to give birth, a man who stopped traffic to save a clueless, happy sloth. I think that is something my dad would do.
So I smile and think that my meaning and purpose are as important as theirs.
I do not mind the delay.
I look up, and the moon's night shift is ending. The sun is about to take her place.
And I think of how there are no 6-minute delays for the moon and the sun;
Except for this daylight savings thing, which I may never understand.
A middle-aged woman is also waiting for the bus, and I can tell she is also getting home from her night shift.
My mom has worked enough night shifts for me to recognize one.
And I look at the clouds and think of her again.
My mom is a cloud, soft with a 10% chance of rain, constantly shaping herself for my little sister and me to lay on the grass and find pretty figures in the sky.
I, too, will be a cloud someday.
I, too, will be the ocean.
The bus arrives at exactly 7:56. The door opens, and I get on the far-right seat, my designated seat,
The one with the largest window.
I always get sad when it is already taken.
I rest my head on the cold glass and look at the moon, taking her last peek at me.
I think that, funnily, to me, the moon has she/her pronouns because my mom is also the moon.
I think of how I would laugh at her when she said, "hija, you can only cut your hair when there is a full moon. It will grow longer."
And of how she would ask me to close my curtains when there was a full moon because "it would give me a headache."
And I think of when I called her, and she immediately said: "ay hija, I called you with my thoughts. I was just thinking of you".
"You are always thinking of me, mamá. That is just a coincidence," I'd say.
And she responded, with her most serious voice: "someday, it will be scientifically proven that you are connected to the people you love in ways that haven't been discovered yet."
And I would laugh it off, thinking it was insane how she did not need scientific proof to believe such things with such conviction.
But I made an appointment to get a haircut on the next full moon.
And that day, I will close my curtains because I don't want to get a headache.
The bus starts moving, and I am grateful for the 6-minute delay, for the woman working her night shift, for last night's rain and its remains, for the moonlight, for meaningful walks, and for my mother.
I am tired, so I close my eyes.
I overhear an old woman on the phone with her son. "I love you," she tells him,
and I wonder if she also called him with her thoughts.
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